What do you make of this poem, “Aspiration,” accompanying the drawing here?

Drawing of a Device by Which a Person Can Fly, 1902. ARC Identifier 594758

Have you ever been worried about being buried alive? This inventor must have. I like the revision to the subtitle of this “life preserving coffin” in which actual has been marked through. After all, no coffin design will help the actually dead.

Lots of puzzling things going on in the next diagram. What is the man at the top of this staircase doing? And the second guy in the top hat? What is that chair doing at the base of the stairs? Why did the inventor call his mobile staircase a ladder anyway? etc.

Drawing of Fire Ladder, 04/18/1831. ARC Identifier 593886

Time to rest, but how fast would you have to rock in this chair to make a breeze strong enough to justify expending your energy?